Absurd traits and dumb limitations

Started by GUTB, June 19, 2017, 11:29:23 AM

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GUTB

The game is heavily weighed down by absurd traits such as pyromaniac, chemical interest, etc. which lead to ridiculous limitations such as inabilities to do dumb labor, cook, fight, and so on. Do you know of or even HEARD of ANYONE who uncontrollably has to start fires? Who randomly needs to stuff his face with pills?

People who can pick up a 300 lbs elk after shooting it, but who can't move a medkit? People that would rather STARVE TO DEATH instead of picking berries from a bush? People who CAN'T put some meat over a fire for 5 minutes? Would there REALLY be that many physically and mentally handicapped people on a rimworld?

Trylobyte

A few things.

Yes, there are people who uncontrollably have to start fires, and they are called pyromaniacs.  This is a real disorder and that's what it really does.  It's one of the more accurately portrayed disorders in the game, whether you believe it or not.

Chemical Interest/Fascination are less 'I need to stuff my face with pills' and more 'I've always heard about all these drugs and all the cool things they can do, I wonder why I'm forbidden from trying them?  Ah, fuck it, I'm gonna try them anyway.'  They're the ones that get deep into drug culture and often, in the real world, wind up addicted to a number of different drugs.  It's another impulse control disorder like pyromania.

The other restrictions you're referring to are often from backgrounds, not traits.  Some of them are quite annoying because they won't take those actions even to save their lives and some of them are remarkably arbitrary in their assignment, but that's a sacrifice made in the name of gameplay.  I hate colonists with dumb labor disabled as much as the next RimWorlder (especially since that seems remarkably common) but it's part of the game as Tynan designed it.  Hopefully we'll get a greater variety of backgrounds that don't disable critical skills.

grinch

Quote from: GUTB on June 19, 2017, 11:29:23 AM
The game is heavily weighed down by absurd traits such as pyromaniac, chemical interest, etc. which lead to ridiculous limitations such as inabilities to do dumb labor, cook, fight, and so on. Do you know of or even HEARD of ANYONE who uncontrollably has to start fires? Who randomly needs to stuff his face with pills?

People who can pick up a 300 lbs elk after shooting it, but who can't move a medkit? People that would rather STARVE TO DEATH instead of picking berries from a bush? People who CAN'T put some meat over a fire for 5 minutes? Would there REALLY be that many physically and mentally handicapped people on a rimworld?

Pawns can put meat over a campfire. pyromaniac, well its extreme and unfun (micromanage other pawn to firefight) but chemical interest its very realistic, I meet real people with chemical interest like Rimworld (aka consume all drugs on sight 24/7).
I agree with dumb labor thing its too common.

"Would there REALLY be that many physically and mentally handicapped people on a rimworld?"
Well, on real world about 25% suffers some kind of mental illness, on a wide range of severity, but 25%

GUTB

But, it seems like every 3rd or 4th pawn is a pyromaniac. Like half of them can't do dumb labor.

The majority of games end because you lose the useful pawns and are stuck with the useless ones who then go on a mental break / useless death spiral inspite of having a fully viable colony. I once got wiped out because HALF my pawns were LITERALLY incapable of putting out fires??

Modo44

It would be more work to make pawns less able to do things. A logic yes/no check is easier to program. You can remove most of this idiocy by editing the "Core" mod, or by using mods that make it more sensible. Note that it will make the game easier as it is balanced about some pawns being utterly useless resource black holes.

Rimrue

It doesn't fix pyromaniacs or chemical interest traits, but my Pawns Are Capable mod fixes the incapabilities. I did try to balance it so some pawns are still essentially useless. ;)

cultist

Quote from: GUTB on June 19, 2017, 12:00:51 PM
But, it seems like every 3rd or 4th pawn is a pyromaniac.

It's because of the background that forces the trait on that pawn. I'm not sure if it's been acknowledged, but the random assignment of that trait needs adjusting because there is so much non-random assigning of it happening.

Rimrue

That and incapable of art, firefighting, dumb labour, and intellectual.  :/

Wheatley

I always took incapable of dumb labour to mean they were too lazy or snobby to do the labour rather than they were physically incapable. That makes me feel better about the "accidents" that seem to commonly occur around these people..

The Nickman

Personally, I quite like the fact certain pawns can't do certain actions, or start fires randomly, or take drugs even when told not to.  It all adds to the challenge of the game and makes colony selection so important.  Sure one or two people with a bad trait in a colony of ten people can be carried, but all of a sudden get four pyromaniacs and you better start being careful before you accept the next one!

cultist

Quote from: The Nickman on June 19, 2017, 08:54:03 PM
Personally, I quite like the fact certain pawns can't do certain actions, or start fires randomly, or take drugs even when told not to.

It's not so much the events but the magnitude. A chemical interest guy doesn't just binge on drugs, he keeps taking drugs in a very short time span until there's a very high chance he dies from it. The addiction is the least of your worries. Pyromaniacs don't just start a few fires, they set fire to everything they see for several minutes.

The only one I really hate is chemical fascination, because it plays out more like a deliberate attempt at suicide than a drug binge. Completely at random, for no reason whatsoever, your pawn will just start taking drugs and they usually don't stop until they drop from consciousness loss, overdosing or have a heart attack. I don't mind that they just randomly smoke/snort/inject my stash, but do they have to do it with the sole purpose of killing themselves?

jchavezriva

The only fix to be done with pyromaniacs is to reduce their spawn frequency. To have one of them in the colony should be something extemely rare, but i have gone through  at least 4 playthroughs (out of 6 aprox) with this fuckers around!

AngleWyrm

#12

Quote from: GUTB on June 19, 2017, 11:29:23 AM
The game is heavily weighed down by [the] absurd...
Fixed.  ::)

It looks a like a hostile relationship between modder and for lack of a better term everything else that is not the given self doing the observing. Any subject of the witness becomes the target of animosity, the child that burned ants as a kid, the adult of whom is said some people just want to watch the world burn.

Maybe that's a developmental disorder at the scale of populations, some deformity of the competition for resources that resulted in a suicidal decay of the species.

Or maybe its just Lady Death doing her job as mistress of entropy.
My 5-point rating system: Yay, Kay, Meh, Erm, Bleh

Tynan

I'm adjusting some of the work disable proportions for next update.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

Dashthechinchilla

I always pretend that the high incidence of mental disorders like pyromania were the side effects of genetic manipulation and breeding. It is hinted at with the go juice description implying that intentional biological manipulation is less controlled in the wide universe.